Partial migration in roe deer: migratory and resident tactics are end points of a behavioural gradient determined by ecological factors

By Francesca Cagnacci, S. Focardi, Marco Heurich, Anja Stache, A. Hewison, N. Morellet, P. Kjellander, J. Linnell, A. Mysterud, Markus Neteler and 3 more. 2011

242 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Ungulate populations exhibiting partial migration present a unique opportunity to explore the causes of the general phenomenon of migration. Th e European roe deer Capreolus capreolus is particularly suited for such studies due to a wide distribution range and a high level of ecological plasticity. In this study we undertook a comparative analysis of roe deer GPS location data from a representative set of European ecosystems available within the EURODEER collaborative project. We aimed at evaluating the ecological factors aff ecting migration tactic (i.e. occurrence) and pattern (i.e. timing, residence time, number of migratory trips). Migration occurrence varied between and within populations and depended on winter severity and topographic variability. Spring migrations were highly synchronous, while the timing of autumn migrations varied widely between regions, individuals and sexes. Overall, roe deer were faithful to their summer ranges, especially males. In the absence of extreme and predictable winter conditions, roe deer seemed to migrate opportunistically, in response to a tradeoff between the costs of residence in spatially separated ranges and the costs of migratory movements. Animals performed numerous trips between winter and summer ranges which depended on factors infl uencing the costs of movement such as between-range distance, slope and habitat openness. Our results support the idea that migration encompasses a behavioural continuum, with one-trip migration and residence as its end points, while commuting and multi-trip migration with short residence times in seasonal ranges are intermediate tactics. We believe that a full understanding of the variation in tactics of temporal separation in habitat use will provide important insights on migration and the factors that infl uence its prevalence.

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b85cbb1dc85b608ea128a5523ef8c6e7b8c56013

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

1. A. Mysterud
2. G. Kerley
3. M. Hayward
4. J. Milner
5. M. Apollonio
6. T. Borowik
7. J. Gaillard
8. K. Schmidt

Citations in the corpus

• Prevalence and Mechanisms of Partial Migration in Ungulates (2019, background): “Indeed, some authors consider the choice to migrate as one point in a continuum of movement responses that occur over multiple scales of spatiotemporal variability (Cagnacci et al., 2011).”
• Challenges and science-based implications for modern management and conservation of European ungulate populations (2017, background): “the remainder stays resident on the same range year-round (Cagnacci et al. 2011; Mysterud et al. 2011).”
• Driving forces for changes in geographical distribution of Ixodes ricinus ticks in Europe (2013, background): “Climatic changes have also reduced the length of snow cover (which in turn can negatively impact tick survival) in alpine areas previously only utilised by roe deer during the summer period, thus lessening the significant limiting factor to roe deer distribution and permanence at altitude [57].”